Ascension
by SilverOsprey
Summary: Asami's four and dreams of flying.


Author's Note: OKAY I'M SORRY! I promise I'm working on the next chapter of Meeting of Minds, for those reading and waiting! This just…blindsided me? It was supposed to be just a little study about Asami and bending that sort of exploded…

Disclaimer: Wish I owned, but I really don't.

…

_Ascension_

…

Asami's four and dreams of flying.

It's always cold in her dreams. The wind is crisp and cool against her face, the sky a dark blanket studded with so many twinkling pinpricks of light, like candles on water. She flies with the sound of the sea for company, quiet and comforting.

She dances with the stars.

(When she wakes up, joyous and bright, she runs to her mother and declares that she's going to become an airbender.)

…

She's six and dreams of fire.

She's been intimately acquainted with fire for as long as she can remember. At first it was through her mother, warm and bright and nurturing, full of love and life. And then comes the sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh, and pain – _oh God, the pain_ – and screaming, and she's not sure if it's her mother or herself.

When it's finally all over, her mother is _gone_ while Daddy is tired and sad all the time and the throbbing in her side is nothing compared to the agony deep in her chest.

(Sometimes she wonders if she hated fire.)

…

She's twelve and has nightmares about being buried alive.

(Or she's being chased by large, angry books flapping brittle pages covered in equations and physics and mechanics. It's not that she's _bad_ at these things Dad loves, she just finds them _boring_.)

It's already hard, being her father's daughter, made harder by expectations like iron chains; and the hard, distant look he wears sometimes when he stares too long at that one photo of happier times weighs on her mind like boulders.

But her birthday comes around, and Dad has finally caved and bought her that ostrich-pony she's been asking for since she was 10 when he had been holding on too tightly.

The first thing she does is go into a full-on gallop.

Her father looks like he's about to have a heart-attack, but she's laughing; because the wind's in her face, threading fingers through her hair, and singing a song of freedom.

Then she falls.

…

She's fifteen and dreams of underwater racetracks, and swimming, and drowning.

(She's already decided that her dreams are ridiculous.)

She's immersed herself in pro-racing satomobiles and learning every form of self-defense and martial arts that she can, but she's still suffocating in this city and not all the adrenaline in the world can stop it.

Generally, she is discontent, and there is much to be frustrated with.

First: she's adrift more often than not at the high society functions her father has been bringing her to with increasing frequency.

Second: Councilman Tarrlock gives her the creeps. It's obvious that he's scheming – something. The problem is figuring out _what_.

Third: Disturbing whispers swirling in the eddies of Republic City's collective unconsciousness. Stories of a mysterious masked man tempting with sinfully sweet words of "revolution" and "equality." But she is already just so _tired_ of the fighting.

(She gave this list to her father. He was NOT AMUSED.)

It's as she's watching her first pro-bending match, and reliving the bright and bursting heat of flame, the solid strength of earth, the flowing dance of water, the ingrained movement of muscles and sinew, that last burst of adrenaline to push through the exhaustion and _win_, that she wonders why a non-bender would even need to demand equality. Determination, constancy, adaptability, even freedom, they're all right _there_ for anyone to know. The benders are just a bit more obvious about it.

…

She's eighteen and she doesn't dream.

Her world is gone, shattered. She's lost in a maelstrom, and flame does not a rock make. And so she drifts and treads water and prays she doesn't drown, because she's just so _tired_ (heartsick).

They say that the night is darkest before the dawn, and she hopes that's true, because she can't find the stars.

She knows they try. But Mako is treating her like spun glass and so obviously in love with Korra. Bolin likes her, but loves his brother more. And Korra has the weight of the world on her shoulders, and Asami knows with the certainty of fire that she wants help relieve her of that weight. No matter what.

It's only in the dead of night in the privacy of the Air Temple's kitchen, clutching a cup of tea in carefully still hands that she admits to Pema how sometimes (now more than ever) she wishes (desperately, longingly) that she could fly.

…

She's mildly surprised at the crunch of booted feet on the compact snow and ice behind her. She hadn't thought anyone would miss her. After all, the evil of Hiroshi Sato has been defeated, and the threat of Amon eliminated; the girl has gotten her boy, and the bending that had been lost has been found, so they all deserve the party they've thrown.

"You're going to freeze if you stay out here for too long, dressed like that." Korra sounds careful, concerned.

She doesn't respond, simply tilts her head back and stares at the little pinpricks of light in the darkling sky, and thinks of candles on water. Korra shifts behind her, moving so that they are side-to-side. The Avatar is silent, as she too studies the sky.

"I used to dream of flying," Asami says suddenly into the quiet stillness, "in a place like this. Where the wind is sharp and cold and clear, and the night skies are bright and beautiful, and you are enveloped by peace and stillness."

Korra looks confused – it's clear she doesn't _really_ understand – and Asami ducks her head and mumbles in embarrassment about returning to the party. She's already turning when Korra grabs her hand, firm and insistent like earth.

Korra is shy, and staring at everything but Asami as she whispers, "I used to dream of falling."

She must have a strange expression on her face, because Korra is back-tracking and spluttering and red. "Silly, huh? I mean, who's ever heard of an Avatar afraid of _falling_? I mean, it's not like it doesn't happen all the time anyway."

But Asami is smiling, soft and kind, and squeezing Korra's hand gently with her own. "I'll catch you," she says, earnest and warm. (Because no matter how much she longs for the heavens, she lives on the ground, and she has learned to love it here.)

Korra pauses, and looks at Asami – really _looks_ _at her._ And then she smiles, and her smile bright and beautiful and just like the stars, as she replies, "I'll be your wings."

And for a single crystalline moment, Asami knows what it is to fly.


End file.
